Examples

Fortunately, a short trip to #git revealed the cause of the problem: git compresses objects before sending them to a remote repository; it simply ran out of virtual memory while compressing some of the larger files.

Edit: You know, it occurred to me, if Dr. Goodschmo had just been hanging out on Wordie to begin with, he might've just made a List of Words That Bug Me and put that on it, and then he wouldn't have had an army of people attacking him about his snarky bloggie. *sigh* Another missed proselytizingopportunitie.

Admittedly, the name Wordie did surprise me at first — but only because the site itself immediately inspired, deep within me, what I believe bilby has termed a glow-worm symphony of delightedness..It is a little "web 2.0," but it's cute, memorable, and to-the-point as well — it certainly didn't bother me enough to write, publish, edit, re-edit, and finally delete, when teased about – a blog post.

It seems as though we shamed him into taking down his thoughtie. Or maybe he's doing some major revision. Dr. Goodbeard seems to have less interest in saving the discussion for posterity than in saving his own posterior. In any case I did a search on his blog for the words foodie and wordie and received the message "No posts found."

A little of the original par about wordie.org was captured over on pontificate:"I think they might reconsider it given the fun and knowledge gained by the the logophiles and verbivores visiting sites like this one."

And more, if not all, of the famous par 5 can be read in Bilby's long comment below.

And since the whole thing has curiously vanished, here's my first comment (of two--forgot to save the second):

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve gained more "fun and knowledge" at Wordie.org than anywhere else on the Internet. I much prefer the interplay and discussion of words and language there than the authoritarian tone here, so don’t bother trying to persuade us to stay. No really. We must be going.

I wonder why a person would post a blog entry and expect no discussion or replies. What's the point of blogging if you don't want people to read it and respond? I guess some people just want to pontificate.

We need a backup copy for the next generation.This is the original post:

Foodie, Wordie: the Low-Brow Suffix -ie

We are watching the rise of a new suffix in US English which we should head off by all means possible. The suffix -ie seems to have begun its life as a misguided backformation of a plural. This backformation took place in words like cookies, the plural of cooky or cookey, a word whose final Y become IE before the plural suffix -s. If you remove the final S, as you do to recover the singular from other plural words, the result is a word ending on IE if you don’t know the ie-rule.

At first -ie was just a variant spelling of the old suffix -y, but now it seems to be taking off on its own. This spelling, where erstwhile stood -y, is now widely accepted and even preferable in many words such as cookie, brownie, and nightie. Semantically, it is just a variation on the spelling on -y in these cases.

However, in such words as cutie, druggie, meanie, and yuppie, there is a pejorative connotation which may be infecting the suffix itself. A little may even lie in hippie, which carries with it a sense of “rule-breaker, maverick, renegade�?.

The reason I think this pejorative connotation may be infecting the suffix is the recent rise of two new words. A year or two ago, we began hearing the word foodie referring to someone who enjoys well-prepared if not excellent cuisine. If foodie does not carry a pejorative connotation, it certainly is a low-brow alternate to epicure, connoisseur, and gourmet.

No exact meaning has yet settled on this word but my take is that it refers to people who watch the Food Channel and follow such low-brow cooks as Emeril Lagasse, Rachael Ray, and Martha Stewart. Foodies are less connoisseurs of food than food dilettantes, cooking show personality groupies (groupie—there is another one).

Big deal. I don’t hang with foodies, so they don’t bother me. The latest word in this trend hits home, though—wordie! Wordies have their own website, wordie.org, where the idea is to play with words without actually learning anything about them.

Wordies are quite different from logophiles in their misconstrual of the importance of words and the role they play in our lives. Knowledge of words seems unimportant to wordies; words are just another topic of chit-chat to identify with. If not, they would have come up with a clerver name for themselves.

What will be next? Drinkies? Swimmies? Sunnies? Bungie-jumpies? Almost anything is possible so long as the meanings of these words evade capture. The important point to keep in mind is that these words lead at best questionable lives in our vocabulary as demonstrated by the reputation of their suffix.

I just added my 2 cents to Dr. Goodword's discussion (nosing around his site, I discovered that he is in fact a certain Dr. Robert Beard). My comment is "awaiting moderation". But here it is now in its fullness:

While the suffix “-ie�? can be pejorative or, to be more precise, belittling, it is just as often an indication of familiarity and affection. This is certainly true in personal names. Thus Edward becomes Eddie; Jennifer, Jennie, and so on. I have not researched the issue (and nor, it seems, have you to any great extent), but I suspect the suffix is rooted in the Norman French past and is not, in fact, a clipped form of the plural. Its connection with personal names is probably why, as mollusque pointed out, it is used more with nouns, whereas forms in -y tend to be adjectival. If I am right that -ie originally was meant to indicate affection and familiarity, then it is not too much of a stretch for it to indicate belittlement and disrespect. In many languages, affectionate forms can also function as diminuatives and pejoratives.Words like “foodie�?, “folkie�?, and now “wordie�? indicate, to me at least, not so much belittlement as familiarity and affection, the sense of being part of a community. Otherwise, people would not embrace these words to describe themselves. People readily admit to being “foodies�?, for example. What you call “low-brow�? about these words is what I would call communal. One who is a “foodie�? is part of that community of people who are a little obsessed with food, not so much with eating it as with talking about it, reading about it, learning about it, etc. Foodies are a community, whereas another term, like “gourmet�? suggests the individual connoisseur, who if he or she is part of a community, it is a very selective one, a clique more than a community.The website you mention, wordie.org, is not a gathering of word connoisseurs, but an open community for people who love words. I have been participating for about a year, and enjoy it immensely. Many of the people on Wordie are, in fact, people who work with words professionally: editors and writers and even linguists. Others are people who just love words. There is a fair amount of convivial silliness that goes on, but there is also a lot of interesting discussion. And I have to add that, compared to many social-networking sites, there is an extremely high level of civility and even genuine kindness that one encounters on Wordie. So it is no wonder that we Wordies are so passionate about defending our community.

In case it doesn't make it through moderation (though I did put some over-the-top compliment in at the end), here it is:

'“…which we should head off by all means possible�?? Are you for real? English has survived, prospered, and taken over the globe precisely *because* of its ability to acquire and adapt foreign and new words, phrases, and spellings. Your siren-call to save the language from itself is, if successful, the beginning of the end of the English language.

I don’t think the -ie ending is pejorative in any way. Your post here, on the other hand…

See you at Wordie.org, if you’ve got the ovaries to hang out with us. I submit this reply in all good cheerfulness, and with great thanks for your attention and respect for our mutual love of language.'

And I share bilby's scorn for self-appointed guardians of language. Gah!!

True mollusque. I take it back, Doc: people can leave comments ... if the Litburo approves! I stand on gunshot-ridden feet beside my point about the relative level of interactivity between the Goodword site and Wordie. I don't deny Doc Schlockie his place in the internet sun if that's what he wants. I think his attempt to denigrate Wordie as low-brow and a source of little enlightenment shows he just doesn't get it. *pants* No more breath to waste on this turd-tosser.

Don't bother, I tried. He has comment moderation on, and opted not to accept my mildly obnoxious riposte.

He did email me and sort of kind of tried to make nice--he slightly edited the post, which left it a little less coherent but didn't change the tone. He also took the opportunity to brag about how many unique visitors he gets. Quite a few, if he's to be believed.

Not sure what they come for. The ads? Another triumph of SEO over content.

Very astutely pointed out, mollusque. There are plenty of other -y/-ie pairs where there is adjective/noun split. I also happen to think it's a tool worth having in the box in terms of English morphology.

There are several things that disturb me about the Doctor's poxy proffering. Firstly, his opening sentence: "We are watching the rise of a new suffix in US English which we should head off by all means possible." For a start I am unimpressed by self-appointed guardians of the language (why guard language anyway? why not encourage its free-spirited development?) whistling forth a zombie-squad of sabre-toothed pinheads to do their bidding. Then there's the focus on US English. If Doctor G was worth his salt he'd know the -ie suffix is very productive in Australia. I've certainly heard two of his feared words drinkie and sunnies here.Secondly, his point about the pejorative connotation of the -ie suffix is extremely moot. What negative aspect of meanie does not similarly attach to mean? Once it was hip to be a hippie, now less so, although hippy is almost as common. Any pejorative connotation relates to the concept itself looking dated rather than a vicious suffix tearing up the semantic roadway. Could anyone seriously suggest that doggie is a nastier animal compared to doggy? Having commenced with a premise as sound as a Papal tour of Mecca, he tries to prop it up with his trumps: foodie and wordie. "If foodie does not carry a pejorative connotation, it certainly is a low-brow alternate to epicure, connoisseur, and gourmet." Low-brow? You take the high-brow, I'll take the low-brow, and I'll be in Savoryland before ye. YOUR use of the term low-brow reflects YOUR prejudices, Doctor G. The origin of the term foodie however demonstrates an interest in making the love of food more widely acceptable and accessible, a move to counterbalance the elitism of the establishment. Oh yes, the hoi polloi dare to take in interest in that with which they fill their guts, stabbing at the heart of the food establishment that lies like a burst main spouting tosh from the wankery-eateries of the world and cholestorol from the packaged-food industry. This isn't low-brow, mister. It's political. It's change. It's dynamism and you can't even see that Wordie sups at the same lurv-bowl, honey chile. Besides, the foodie genie has been out of the bottle and wreaking havoc on your Delikate Sensibilitys since 1981 at least ... you did do your research, didn't you?"The latest word in this trend hits home, though—wordie! Wordies have their own website, wordie.org, where visitors seem to play with words in a rather superficial way in comparison to the depth and authority of this website. Clearly, they feel no insult in the name they have chosen for themselves. I think they might reconsider it given the fun and knowledge gained by the the logophiles and verbivores visiting sites like this one."Why don't you have the ovaries to tell the pale-faced truth? There is very little wordplay on your site. For the most part they read, and you tell them what to think. There's not a single page on your site where a person can even leave a comment. Ooh, Pooh-Bah, old hat! This is the web, you hickory-dickory Doc. I realise it's antipathy to a skanky old glugrump to let the masses have their say about what language means to them, and how they use it, and how they might go about classifying and categorising it, and sharing the nuances of words that flit and gambol through their lives, but that's what happens here. Don't posit your bully-pulpit as an alternative to Wordie because you aint fit to roll up our socks yet, pithninny.

Fret not, wordies. Dr Goodword may frown on our superficial, incorrectly back-formed, perjorative suffix, but thousands of British and Australian bricklayers, all answering to the name of brickie, will undoubtedly back us up.

I just hope, for his sake, that those maverick, rule-breaking, renegade hippies don't get wind of the good doctor's pronouncement.

I like the alt. definition of this:Noun 1. git - a person who is deemed to be despicable or contemptible; "only a rotter would do that"; "kill the rat"; "throw the bum out"; "you cowardly little pukes!"; "the British call a contemptible person a `git'"